About us

Hello,

My name is Christian J.L. and I am co-founder of "In Via" which is latin for "The Way", the name the first followers of Christ gave themselves. I am a baptized and Confirmed Catholic man, recently married, who just like the rest of our brothers and sisters is just trying to fight the good fight while here on earth.

Here at In Via I design theme inspired crucifixes with a mission! Well, with a few missions. The first mission of each design is to inspire a strength in faith depending on the design theme. For strength in marriage we have our Holy Matrimony Crucifix. For strength in fighting the good fight we have our Sword of the Spirit Crucifix. How many times have we been comforted by holding a rosary? How many times were we no longer afraid by holding a cross? I wanted to come up with unique and custom designs that would inspire such feelings of strength and comfort in anyone who sees them. To achieve this we spent many months perfecting a process which could produce wearable crucifixes with the extremely high details ours have. I wanted to represent Jesus as being visually strong and his cross as a symbol of strength in a way I just couldn't find when searching online and in many of the churches I've been to around the world.

Now the question, Why? Why did we start In Via? To be honest it was never my intention to design and produce crucifixes until I noticed a problem and needed to find a solution. In 2017 my wife an I were group leaders at an RCIA class at St. Dominics Catholic Church in San Francisco. We met a very faithful and inspirational man from Africa who was full of joy and God's love. He never missed one of our weekly classes and he was always willing to help anyone who needed a friend. Most of all his stories of faith would move an entire room of people. I never noticed he wore the same clothes every class and carried a lot of belongings with him. Probably because I was so intrigued by the outward joy he showed to everyone. While on my phone during a snack break he noticed I was looking at Paracord Rosaries. What he said next planted the small seed which has grown into the mission of In Via:

"Man that's durable, I wish I had something like that so it wouldn't break on me out there. All I have is this string one because that's all I can get being homeless and sleeping in the streets. But that's okay because God doesn't care what I pray the Rosary with. As long as I'm praying."

Nobody in our group had realized he was a homeless person. I was heartbroken. I confessed I had not realized his situation and I offered to help in any way I could. He told me not to worry because this life isn't our party! Our true party is waiting for us in Heaven with God. I was worried about weather because it was winter in San Francisco and the nights were very cold and wet. I asked again if there was anything I could do and he just smiled and said "My brother, sharing the times we have, partaking in the Mass, sharing meals, laughing and enjoying our conversations in the God house is more then anyone could ever ask for."

I was truly moved by his humility but still heartbroken for my friend. Of course I immediately ordered a paracord rosary for him and brought it to class the following week. Unfortunately he would never return to class. Every week following we would bring his paracord rosary to class hoping to gift it to him but mostly we were just hoping to see him to know he was okay. My wife and I were concerned and would ask around to find out if anyone had seen him or had heard anything. As the weeks turned into months and the old and wet nights of winter passed and spring came we still never saw him again.

"Man, that's durable, I wish I had something like that so it wouldn't break on me out there."- Our friend and brother in Christ.

These words above inspired the creation of In Via to provide paracord rosaries to people who are homeless across the USA and hopefully one day around the world. Sure, I could have gone out and bought a bunch of rosaries but I would always have been limited by my resources. So my wife and I came up with a plan to sell beautifully designed catholic inspired crucifixes so a portion of the profits would pay for paracord rosaries to be given to people who are homeless. The other profits would be reinvested in the business to keep a supply of paracord rosaries to be distributed to our homeless brothers and sisters way longer than I could ever do with just my my own money.

We are a relatively new business and have been selling less then a year, yet I am proud to say as a community through the people who buy In Via crucifixes and our fellow Catholics who volunteer to distribute the rosaries around the county, we have been able to give away a retail value of over $1,000 worth of paracord Rosaries to our homeless bothers and sisters.

First and foremost all thanks to God for allowing all this and a special thanks to our friend from San Francisco who inspired a movement to provide durable rosaries to our brothers and sisters in need.

God be with you on your mission

-Christian J.L.